Chishills issues

Great Chishill village website: www.greatchishill.org.uk.

Great Chishill Parish Council website: http://www.greatchishillpc.com/

Susan regularly attends parish council meetings and her reports are included in parish council minutes.

Lib Dem District Councillor Jose Hales: www.josehales.com

Village Groups

If you run a village group and would like help advertising an event or recruiting volunteer helpers, please let Susan know and she would be glad to include a few lines in her monthly community e-newsletter.

Windmill

At the Annual Parish Meeting on May 13, Parish Councillor Jim Brealey reported on progress toward creating a trust for the Windmill, following the County Council’s decision to sell this listed property.  You can contact Jim via the Parish Council website: http://www.greatchishillpc.com, and you can support the new Windmill trust project by becoming a Friend of Great Chishill Windmill: http://www.greatchishillwindmill.com.

31  Bus

The list of bus subsidy cuts, county-wide by tranche, came out 24 February. Subsidies for the 31 are due for withdrawal in September 2013.  I’ll provide a report for the next parish council meeting, but for now:
The county council says it will work with each community where it intends to remove bus subsidies to come up with an alternative transport proposal, though of course the 31 covers a long stretch.  At the moment all the county’s efforts are focused on tranche 1 (Sept 2012), and they say they will start working on tranche 2 in the summer of this year.  The amount of subsidy that will go into the alternative provision is considerably less than what has gone into bus subsidies until now: £2.7 million out, £1.5 million in (over three years, across five county districts).  There was a massive error in one of the local papers which reported that £15 million is going into Dial-a-Ride.   That was probably a misunderstanding of the £1.5.
I’ve been getting calls mainly from people who absolutely depend on the bus for work and school. The difficulty for some school-bound passengers is that while the county has a commitment to help get sixth formers to Long, Hills, Netherhall or Impington Sixth Forms (these are ‘designated post-16 education centres for Chishill and Heydon), there is no obligation to get children to independent schools or colleges outside that designated list, or to training or apprenticeships.
I’ve been liaising with Royston and District Community Transport for months on this and other prospective bus cuts in the area and they simply don’t have the capacity to pick up lost bus services. The next step will be to find out from county officers what their thinking is on the 31 now that they have set out their budgets and cuts tranches.
Please let me know if you have any questions and I’ll try to get them answered.

Chishill Youth Club

The County Council withdrew funding for all of its open access youth clubs this year.  Great Chishill Youth Club has managed to keep itself up and running on its own steam and has organized a number of fundraisers to support the club.  Please contact Ruth Dibblee or Janet Erskine, via http://www.greatchishillpc.com.

Royston and District Community Transport scheme

If you are elderly or mobility impaired, and need lifts to the doctor’s or to get shopping done, you could benefit from the Royston and District Community Transport scheme.

A fleet of volunteer drivers donate their time free of charge.  Passengers contribute 45 pence per mile; the minimum charge is £4 per journey up to nine miles.  The scheme also operates a wheelchair-accessible 12/16 seat minibus and a four-six seat Multi-Purpose Vehicle.

The service can be used for health care appointments, day centres, special needs clubs, social purposes and shopping.

If you require a lift – or would like to volunteer as a driver – please text or phone 01763-245228 between 9AM and 3PM Monday to Friday;  an answer phone will take a message if the phone is unmanned.  (Please don’t be put off by the answer phone – it does get checked regularly!)  You can also email the service at rct1@totalise.co.uk.